Full national newspaper coverage in the Daily Mail.

A bus drives through a pile of snow on a road somewhere in the USA. A national newspaper on a different continent deems this to be newsworthy with a headline including the words ‘brutal murder’ . A very slow day for news on this small island. Obviously, no cats stuck up trees or Elvis sightings to grab the headlines.

Today I did my own version of P+R into Southampton – drive to Shirley Road, park in a side street and then take any passing bus (they come every couple of minutes) into town. Bluestar and First buses both cover this route but it was a First bus which rather appropriately came first today. As I boarded I had to smile. This wasn’t a driver wearing a Santa hat and and looking rather silly in it alongside a uniform jacket, shirt and company tie. This was a real Santa! I hate to say this but my general experience of First drivers in Southampton is not that they are rude or nasty, just that they’re uncommunicative and rather robotic – say the price, print the ticket and leave it at that. No ‘please’ and ‘thanks’ etc. I always say ‘Thanks’, ‘Cheers’ whatever when I leave any bus but it’s rare to get any reply from a Southampton First driver. So it was a real treat to see a driver who was actually going out of his way to be cheery. I asked if I could take a photo of him and put it on this blog, he agreed and I hope that he gets to see it. Well done that man!

“A CAMPAIGN to shop criminals who live off the proceeds of crime is being backed by a bus. Southern Vectis has covered the back of one its double-decker buses with the Crimestoppers’ campaign, Too much bling? Give us a ring! The crime charity hopes the campaign will lead to people reporting loan sharks, drug dealers, thieves and benefit cheats. Marc Morgan-Huws, of Go South Coast, said Southern Vectis backed the campaign to support Crimestoppers keeping the Island safe.” IoW County Press.

Ahem …. is this really a wise thing to say? Bling isn’t my thing, if you know me you’ll already have noticed that! But I think to brand those whose do enjoy sparkly, ostentatious, ornamentation as “loan sharks, drug dealers, thieves and benefit cheats” is going a bit far. I’d back any campaign by Crimestoppers to keep my home area safe but I’d draw the line at targeting any one group of people by race, colour, sex, religion …… lifestyle taste (bling lovers) as likely candidates to be up to no good however lightly or amusingly it’s meant.

Anyway, if that’s their game they can start by reporting this bus to Crimestoppers :-)

During the past 3 years 450 bus drivers have been murdered!

Photographer Daniel LeClair works for Reuters and has been based in Central America since 1999, but is now facing the possibility that he will have to leave. The ongoing bus war and violence in Guatemala City, where he and his family have been living, has forced some changes. Here is the story in his own words:

“I can clearly remember the day the bus war escalated. It was 4 February 2008. Two extortionists were shot and killed while trying to collect a payment on a bus in downtown Guatemala City. Drivers, tired of paying thousands of dollars in extortion, had hired the assassins.

“As I photographed the scene, I overheard police telling each other this was a declaration of war. The response from gang members was brutal. Fifteen drivers and eight assistants were killed over the next three days. I would spend my whole day going from one bus driver’s murder to another, then to a funeral for the drivers killed the day before.

The rest of his story can be read here.

A couple of days ago a notice went up in the depot explaining that on certain routes a return ticket would cost the same as a single for a limited period. Sounds like good marketing you may think. Oh No! Why? The only people to be told of this promotional offer appear to be the drivers. Today I drove one of the routes on which the offer applies and from the first to last request for a return ticket the customer asked me to clarify the price. “That’s a single price, I asked for a return”. “No, it’s more than that” etc. (What an honest lot of customers we have!). I then explained to them that this was a promotional price for a limited period. Other drivers have told me that on overhearing this buyers of weekly tickets said that they wouldn’t be buying a weekly again while returns were the same price as singles.

The good news is that this ‘promotion’ is not upsetting regular passengers but neither is it making them think I ‘must use the bus more’ or ‘bus travel is really easier than I thought’. These people are the already converted, they know the price and have the money in their hand to pay it. They are there because they know the bus is easy, convenient and good value. Stagecoach are giving away money to the converted!

If this promotion were aimed at encouraging people who don’t regularly use a bus to give it a go I’d be all in favour of it. But Stagecoach seem to want to keep it secret. The obvious place to see it promoted would be on the website I thought so I went to the Stagecoach website for our area. As you’ll see there is link ‘….click here for special offers …’. Click on the link and there’s not a mention of the return for a price of a single.

I’ve done lots of Google searches using every combination of words relevant to this and can’t find this promotion anywhere. Either no press releases had been issued, or they’ve not been picked up on. No one I know has seen any advertising of this promotion.

Today I probably ‘ collected £20 less than I would have if the normal fare had been charged on returns. Multiply that by however long this ‘giveaway’ lasts and the number of drivers on affected routes and the money soon mounts up. This is wasted money which could have spent on real marketing ….. or a Christmas bonus for drivers ;-) The only explanation I can think of for just giving the money away is that as the year nears its end the marketing budget is underspent and if it’s not all used they’ll get less next year! No time to plan the marketing of the promotion, just run it and use up the money!